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Jack Agurcia: Shed the screens

Posted:
05/06/2016 07:15:15 PM MDT

Since I was a young lad growing up in the mountains surrounding Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I always chose a stick that abstractly resembled a sword in my young mind over any sort of electronic entertainment. I never took much of a liking to the fancy phones or social media pages all my mates quickly became hooked on. These new methods of entertainment birthed by the Internet rather galled me growing up; however, not until now have I ever truly understood the amount of damage these little pocket screens are causing my generation.

Recently I had the chance to deeply explore the effects of extensive social media use, particularly with regard to literacy and reading habits. I was also fortunate to be able to conduct two experiments independently with the mission to identify a connection between reading habits and social media use. I found both in a survey style experiment with 50 persons, as well as in a case study with 10 individuals, that there is a very clear negative correlation between how long you spend on media and how much you read text of actual value.

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Not only is this troubling because less reading means more ignorance, but also because more and more we see children merging away from productive leisure activities, and toward constant media use. Our professors have now learned that to fight texting in class is to be in disfavor of their students, and to attempt enforcement is surely impossible. We, as the fortunate few who receive higher education at the University of Colorado Boulder must understand that the direct substitution of positive leisure activities for the sedentary act of texting does nothing but harm to all who will follow us. We must drop our phones and pick up some sticks if we intend to thrive.

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